That part where you have to meet the family
by rallamajoop
Summary: If you think hiding a relationship from living relatives is hard, hiding it from deceased relatives is impossible. Fortunately, it's also completely unnecessary.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:** Complete and utter fluff. I have no excuses. No real spoilers, although if the name 'Haruka' doesn't ring any bells, you probably haven't read far enough into the manga to recognise everyone in it.

* * *

Watanuki woke to the sound of footsteps moving over the floorboards. He blinked his eyes open sleepily, a little surprised to discover that they were focusing fine even without his glasses, until he could make out the man who was now sitting near the futon. 

"H... Haruka-san?"

The elder Doumeki held a finger to his lips. "Shh. You don't want to wake Shizuka."

Watanuki was suddenly very aware of the other warm body he was sharing the futon with. Oh. _Oh._ That bit wasn't part of a dream, was it?

The blush rose at lightning speed. "Ah… it's not what… I mean – well, obviously it's exactly what it looks like, but it's not – " Watanuki flailed for words, in the physical as well as the metaphorical sense. It was probably a good thing he was dreaming, or Doumeki would definitely have woken up by now and wanted to know what was attacking them.

Haruka chuckled. "Were you worried I wouldn't approve? Don't be. Nothing that brings Shizuka such contentment could be anything I'd object to."

Watanuki let out a sigh of relief. In retrospect he should have realised this would be the case – if anything, Haruka has been nudging him in his grandson's direction since the first time they met – but having it confirmed was still a weight off his mind. "I… don't know what I thought, really, but – it was just startling to have you show up like that. I'm glad though – that you don't mind."

"I didn't mean to startle you either," said Haruka, smiling fondly "but this is my own house you're staying in." Watanuki started to apologise for the intrusion, but Haruka cut him off. "Don't worry, you'll always be welcome here. I'm sure Shizuka has already told you that."

Doumeki had indeed made that pretty clear.

"You're still having some trouble understanding Shizuka, aren't you?" Haruka inquired gently.

"A bit," Watanuki admitted. "I get some things better now, and the rest – well, it doesn't always seem so important, but I still have no idea what he's thinking most of the time." This was putting it mildly, but something about these meetings with Haruka made it hard to remember why – even in light of recent developments – Doumeki still drove him nuts as often as not.

"Isn't that true of everyone though?" Haruka gave another soft smile. "Watanuki, as accustomed as you are at being independent, aren't you the sort of person who would have always assumed that someday there'd be someone like this for you?"

"Yeah. I guess I did." Though he'd always assumed it would be someone more like Himawari than Doumeki. Life always had been out to get him with things like this at every turn.

"Most of us do, but Shizuka isn't like that," Haruka told him, ever the master of the lost wisdom of Doumeki. "He never assumes anything that isn't obvious, and when he does think about the future, he doesn't presume it will be like everyone else's. It's going to be very unusual for him, to have something like this which he can't take for granted. It will probably be some time yet before he truly figures out how to deal with this. You'll keep that in mind, won't you?"

Watanuki wasn't entirely sure what to do with that information, but it sounded true, and knowing Haruka, it'd turn out to be important somewhere along the line. "Okay." He filed it away to think about when he was more awake. "I'll think about it."

"Please do. If I could make another suggestion…" Haruka started to get to his feet, "if you can get used to the idea, try calling him 'Shizuka' sometime. He'd like that."

"He hasn't… said anything about that," said Watanuki, a little surprised. Personally he was still getting used to only being referred to as 'Oi' about one time out of two – the subject of first names was yet to come up.

"He wouldn't have. Just trust me on this."

Watanuki nodded.

Haruka nodded back. "Take good care of him for me, until next we meet …"

* * *

Watanuki woke up a second time to Doumeki poking him. There was sunlight streaming in through the windows, but it was still too early for there to be any need for them to get up. Doumeki looked a little sleep-mussed, but very much awake. 

"What do you want?" Watanuki mumbled.

"Breakfast," was Doumeki's reply.

Watanuki hit him with a pillow. "Make your own. I know you can handle the complex mechanisms of a toaster."

"I want pancakes."

"Well too bad! You're out of flour. I used the last of it up on that cake the day before yesterday." What went on in the kitchen between Watanuki going in there and a cake coming out an hour later was one of those mysteries Doumeki had never shown enough interest in to uncover, so Watanuki gave him a few minutes to make the necessary mental connections between no-flour and no-pancakes and no-Watanuki-is-not-a-food-dispensing-machine to work their way through his brain. Meanwhile, he sat up and groped around beside the futon – now that he was really awake he needed glasses between himself and the rest of the world to see much of it.

"I saw your grandfather again last night," he mentioned, locating his glasses at last. "He sends us his blessings. Well, not in those exact words, but that was the gist."

"Oh."

"What do you mean 'oh'? It's good news! You're capable of phrasing a more coherent reaction than that."

Doumeki shrugged. "I can't imagine he'd have objected. Not when it's you. But I'm glad," he said vaguely, but he did sound like he meant it.

"Well, sure we should have expected it, but… Huh?" he added, because Doumeki had slumped back down to the futon, pulling Watanuki with him. "I thought you were getting up?"

"If you're not making pancakes, there's no need to get up early," said Doumeki, his voice slightly muffled by Watanuki's shoulder.

Watanuki had a vague recollection a statement like that would have irritated him not so long ago, but with them both in the comfortable sleepiness of the early morning, none of his protests seemed so important.

Shizuka, huh? he mused. Maybe it wouldn't seem so strange to start thinking of Doumeki as that before too long.


	2. Free Advice

**Notes:** More of a companion piece than a proper sequel to the first part, inspired by a question I was asked about the original when that was first posted on LJ which got me thinking about how, even though Watanuki may not have a grandfather like Haruka as a knowledgeable relative, Yuuko could play a very similar role...

* * *

Something in Yuuko's eye made Doumeki wait at the gate after Watanuki had disappeared into the shop, sent on what Yuuko made out to be a mission of utmost importance to bring forth sake in large quantities (and a self-declared mission of his own to find something to make her eat with it), a task that would keep her employee busy long enough for whatever she might have to say. Sure enough, as soon as they'd both seen Watanuki had gone safely inside, her attention was back on him again. "Something on your mind, Doumeki?" 

"Nothing important," Doumeki told her automatically.

"Really?" said Yuuko, making this sound more suspect than there could have been any need for, and prompting Doumeki to remember who he was talking to.

"He saw my grandfather again last night," Doumeki admitted.

"Again, hm? Not getting jealous of that, are we?" Yuuko teased.

"Jealous?"

"He isn't Watanuki's grandfather," she pointed out reasonably. "It would be a perfectly understandable reaction."

It probably would have been, from anyone else, but the idea had honestly never so much as occurred to Doumeki before. "Nothing like that." Things were just what they were, envy wasn't an emotion he'd ever had much use for, and it would have to be hard to envy a gift like Watanuki's for long without remembering the prices that came with it. The occasional rescue or the loan of a deceased grandfather aren't the sort of assistance he could imagine begrudging anyone.

"But it's still on your mind, isn't it?" Yuuko prompted. "It can't be because you feared he wouldn't approve."

She was right, but he had to think about it before he could decide why. What had happened wasn't an unusual event, and what was said was no surprise, and yet…

The answer, if he had been the sort of person who knew how to find the words to phrase it, would have been that even if it was a second-hand message from a relative long dead, something about other people knowing about what he and Watanuki had now made it that much more real. It could never have been kept a secret from people like Yuuko or Himawari – who probably knew what was going on well before either of the boys did – but it's isn't a widely known fact, and so remarkably little had ever had to change between him and Watanuki to make room for this new thing that he's sometimes wondered whether it could all disappear one day, as suddenly and completely as he used to worry Watanuki would, the day he took just one step too far.

Doumeki Haruka may be gone, but his presence in a younger Doumeki's life had once defined a part of how the world was meant to be. Getting that message from him this morning was like feeling an anchor start to catch in firm ground after months of getting used to the idea you were far out at sea.

That was more thinking than he ever usually had to do about anything, and it made him a little uncomfortable. But what he said to Yuuko was, "Something like that just reminds you things have changed."

"For the better, though, haven't they?" said Yuuko lightly.

He'd never dream of arguing that. Least of all with her. He may have officially been the one who didn't get paid for his help on those errands of hers, but even if Yuuko had never broached the subject aloud, he knew that having Watanuki pushed in his direction was something he'd spend the rest of his life paying her back for.

"It must be nearing three months now. How are things going?" Yuuko could certainly have asked Watanuki the same thing just as easily, but she'd be far too wise not to realise there are things she'll only hear from his perspective.

Doumeki considered what there was to tell on the subject.

"He still complains about me walking him to the shop."

"Ah, always so fiercely independent, our Watanuki." There was a distant fondness creeping into Yuuko's voice. "Even when he has no need to be. I wonder whether we'll ever cure him of that."

"He wouldn't want that. It's a pride thing."

"But he can't mind as much as he used to."

"He doesn't complain as much, no." And the complaining he did still do was as much habit as anything else, but it had never gone away.

"And just as surely," Yuuko added, with a different look in her eye, "he doesn't need to be chaperoned everywhere."

"I like walking him places." Doumeki hoped he wasn't starting to sound petulant – it was certainly not a mood that would suit him.

"Especially places where he might meet something unpleasant on the way?" suggested Yuuko.

Doumeki knew there was no point trying to deny it. "There are always spirits out there. And if anything ever happened to him…" He took a breath. "I'd miss him." More than I could have ever imagined I'd miss anything, he didn't say aloud, but he wouldn't have needed to. When you were talking to Yuuko, showing her the shape of what you were thinking would be more than enough.

"That," said Yuuko, "sounds like something you should be telling him, not me."

"He already knows," Doumeki assured her.

Yuuko made a movement that might have been a shrug and gave him a knowing smile. "People still need to hear these things aloud sometimes."

There was a finality to that last piece of advice – something she'd leave him to stew over, and apparently there their conversation had come to an end, because Yuuko had turned back towards the shop

"Come back to pick him up at six – hm, let us say twelve minutes past six, I think, to allow for mishaps. I'll let you have him for the rest of the evening," she said over her shoulder with a wicked smile, the sort which would have had Watanuki in near hysterics, but which Doumeki can't quite find it in himself to resent her for.

"He won't want to be walked home either."

"Then you'll have a good excuse to talk to him," said Yuuko, with the look in her eye of someone who has not only seen the future but enjoyed every minute of the show. "Besides, he'll say that, and part of him will believe it, but the rest of him won't mean it for a moment."


End file.
